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Even more dangerous than the politics of Biden’s Supreme Court–reform proposal is the escalating attack on American institutions that it represents.
First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
Donald Trump questions whether Kamala Harris is really Black.

Onstage at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention today, Donald Trump complained bitterly that technical difficulties had delayed his appearance, but he had no trouble squeezing plenty of inflammatory comments into a shortened interview.
The former president refused to condemn the violent rioters on January 6, 2021. He gave only faint support for J. D. Vance’s preparedness to serve as president.

Last night, in Paris, thunderstorms threatened to pummel the Seine. The men’s triathlon had already been postponed after levels of bacteria in the river measured high, and more rain would have made it worse. Downpours can sweep trash and grime into the river and overwhelm treatment plants as well as old combined pipes where stormwater mingles with wastewater; even the massive tanks Paris installed to keep that mess from pouring into the Seine can be bested by pounding rains.

Oli Scarff / AFP / Getty
Every time a new Olympic Games takes place, photojournalists endeavor to cover the action in novel and compelling ways—not only taking advantage of new technology, but also using their professional eye to discover new angles or framing. AFP photographer Oli Scarff placed an underwater camera in just the right position to capture close views of swimmers as they pass by above.

Updated at 5:15 p.m. ET on July 31, 2024
When the Woodstock festival took place in August 1969, it was famously only the second gig for the newly minted supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. “We’re scared shitless,” Stephen Stills, informed an audience of 400,000-plus during their set. Watching their performance in Woodstock, Michael Wadleigh’s legendary documentary film, you can see the nerves, and the skill, on display.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Wildfires have been ripping across the American West. Last week, the first major fire that California has seen since 2021 quickly became one of the 10 largest in the state’s history.

Every second of every day, people across the world type tens of thousands of queries into Google, adding up to trillions of searches a year. Google and a few other search engines are the portal through which several billion people navigate the internet. Many of the world’s most powerful tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, have recently spotted an opportunity to remake that gateway with generative AI, and they are racing to seize it.

Jamie Squire / Getty
It is an incredible moment when the support of a world-class team pays off and everyone can celebrate their moment of victory. This amazing shot captures the reactions of the gymnast Simone Biles and her teammates in the background, as Biles finishes her floor-exercise routine and they realize that Team USA will win the artistic-gymnastics women’s team final. Photographed on day four of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, at Bercy Arena.

Google is running a new commercial during the Olympics. It’s about a cute little girl—she’s a runner, and she loves Team USA’s Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, a world-record-holding track star who won two Olympic gold medals in 2021. The little girl wants to write her a letter. So Dad fires up an AI chatbot.
“Help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone how inspiring she is,” he asks Google’s Gemini.

The word mother is strikingly similar in languages all across the world: From Swedish (mamma) to Swahili (mama), Czech (matka) to Chinese (mama), most use some combination of the same two sounds, m and ah, to refer to the female parent. This consistency across space and time makes physiological sense, the pioneering linguist Roman Jakobson explained. One of the easiest sounds for a baby to make is ah.